Italia, come ti voglio bene

It is wonderful to be back in Italy, 6 months after departing Milan.  The conference has taken up most of my time in Naples, so I haven't been able to fully explore the city.  However, I managed to see a few churches and visit Pompeii my first day here.  I have half a day of tourist-ing tomorrow, during which I plan to go to the archaeological museum, which holds most of the artefacts from Pompeii.

Even though I am in a very different part of Italy and within a very different context, I've found that being here is very familiar and Italy "feels like home" in many ways.  This experience would likely be much less fun and much more overwhelming had I not lived in Milan for 3 months:

• I more-or-less knew how to navigate the bus system here.  The hardest part is figuring out where to buy tickets - and I wasn't surprised when the news-seller refused to take a 20-Euro bill.  Small change is a necessity here!
• I mostly did ok taking the train to Pompeii and back.  The only mistake I made was not knowing the name of the station I wanted to get off at in Naples - I thought it was Centrale.  Luckily, it was the last station and I had to get off, even though I was waiting for the train to continue on.
• My Italian is serving me ok and coming easier than expected.  I'm still nowhere near the level I was last March, but I am succeeding in starting most interactions in Italian.  At the conference, all of the scientists speak English, but some of the staff seem to not speak very much.  
• I managed to find a great tea shop on my first day.  Obviously I do this in every city I travel to, but I had known that I could find some tea to take home.
• I know that restaurants are going to annoyed if I arrive before 8 PM, even if they are open.  I managed to eat at an Italian dinner time today and yesterday, but I knew I was way too early the first day... 
• I know how to get espresso, and can (more or less) identify the correct way to pay in different types of bars.  I know that cappuccinos go with breakfast (which is pastries) and that espresso is called cafe and that it goes after meals.
• I wasn't surprised by the building my hotel is in.  There is this style of urban buildings that have an inner courtyard with a strange door for people to enter from outside.  I have never seen anything like it in the US and it was very surprising to me the first time I went in one in Milan.  The common areas are simultaneously elegant and run down, but then they can hold very nice apartments.  This building holds many business and apartments.  The elevator is terrifying - and there are some subtleties to this one I haven't figured out yet.  But had I not had practice with the strange door system at my Italian tutor's place, I may never have managed to get into the hotel!
• Italian cities are loud, and in a different way from American cities.  In my apartment in Milan I could hear everything from the apartments around me (including chanting from upstairs) and there was frequently shouting in the street.  Here there is plenty of noise from upstairs and some nearby dogs that bark all of the time.  Compared to the US there seems to be much less traffic noise.
• The cord in the shower is an emergency pull and not for drying clothes.  It is not to be pulled, except in emergencies.
• Gelato can definitely be for dinner, and I even have a favorite flavor (cassata)

As much as I enjoy the conference and sightseeing, I also enjoy the day-to-day details of being in Italy.  I hope to come back again, though I do not know when that will be.  Assuming that I get tenure, I hope I can spend part of my sabbatical here.  This trip has shown me that it would be wonderful to be anywhere in Italy, not just in the north.  

Biophysics vs Medical Physics

I recently attended the APS March Meeting where I attended the Physics Of Cancer Tutorial and spoke in 1 of the 3 "Physics of Cancer" scientific sessions. I knew that there wasn't much "medical physics" in APS, so I was interested in seeing what research on cancer there was.

I think I finally understand the difference between biophysics and medical physics. Many of the talks in the Physics of Cancer session focused on physical properties of cancer cells. What are their elastic properties? Do metastatic cells show different physical properties (size, squishyness) from non-metastatic cancer cells? How much force can cancer cells exert on eachother? One of the talks argued that metastatic vs non-metastatic cancer cells do have different physical properties even if there aren't clear genetic differences.

Conflicting Commitments

The deadline for TA applications was the week before Thanksgiving, and at roughly the last minute, I realized I should TA next quarter. Specifically, I miss teaching. And my schedule would allow it. So I put in my application, putting an upper level course as my first choice. I wanted to TA for Physics 120 (Intermediate E&M) because the professor cares about teaching, I can handle the material, and I haven't TAed an upper level course before. I really like the intro classes for biologists and engineers, but part of a faculty interview at many schools is teaching an upper-division course, so I wanted to have some experience.

After I submitted the application I realize I had one big conflict: March meeting. In the past, March meeting occurs in March, which would be after the term is over. This year it is the last week of February. So it occurs at week 6 or something like that. I particularly wanted to go this year because of a tutorial and focus session on the "Physics of Cancer" - I don't yet know when the session is, so perhaps I can just go for the first few days.

"Live" Blog: Startup Panel at APS

I am at the APS California Regional meeting, at SLAC. They are having a panel on "How to Start Working for a Startup Company?", so I am going to try "live-blogging" it.

Panel Members:
Yi Cui
Stanford Professor
"Every professor on campus has a startup"
Says that as a 3rd year faculty member, he wasn't thinking about statups. But being in Silicon Valley, VC/entrepreneurs keep approaching him and he ended up starting a company.

Jessa Lee
Graduated Stanford in 2009 with BS Physics, MS EE
Works for Pacific Biosciences making DNA sequencers
Was interested in a startup instead of a PhD in order to "understand the ecosystem that science exists in"
Had interned for Pacific Biosciences before graduating, which interested her in industry rather than just going straight to PhD.

William E. White
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Company: Positive Light, TiSaph amplifiers
Started working full time on company in 1999, sold company in 2003. Then came to SLAC.

Andrei Terebilo
PhD at UCLA, dissertation on SSRL
Works for Pacific Biosciences

Question 1: How hard is it to come back to academia?
Bill: It depends on what you do. Some fields it is harder than others. It seems easier to come back to a National Lab, compared to a University.
Advice Do internships. The culture is different, so you can figure out rather quickly if it is for you.

Question 2: How do you get funding?
Yi: Establish credibility through publication of research, etc.
Bill: Take business classes while you have access to them.
Andrei: Join a small company where you can learn these things.

Jessa: It is very helpful to do non-technical internships to learn about product development on the marketing side. It needs to be a good product, not just good technology.

Yi: If you come across as very capable and credible (ie, Steve Jobs) the investors will give you money, no matter what the idea is.

Question 3: How does one protect their IP - ie, get money for it?
Yi: Students need to understand the value of the idea, then get patent protection before going out and giving talks on it.
Bill: Dealing with patents easier in the academic setting. In companies, it is so hard to fight patents, people just keep things secret.

Question 4: What are the options for a theory student?
Jessa: Do you want to keep doing theory? Companies are always looking for smart people. If you want to branch out - computing, modeling - there is a huge industry.
Yi: A theorist can found their own company.

Question 5: Does industry prefer Masters degrees to PhDs?
Jessa: Bigger companies have more specific ideas; startups tend to be more flexible and will want you to do everything.
Bill: I've hired a lot of scientists and the interview - how you are perceived - is more important than Masters vs PhD.
Andrei: The "inflexibility" reputation may come from how complete PhD's expect to understand and know a problem and the solution, compared to the standard in the business world.

Question 6: What type of skill set is academia actually looking for?
Jessa: Communication skills are critical.
Uwe (moderator): It is important to have an expertise, rather than be a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Yi: When interviewing, I drill people on their technical skills.
Bill: Don't underestimate the value of a network. I know who I want to hire before I post the job. Because these industries are small, everyone knows if you leave a company on bad terms.
Andrei: Really research the company, know what their big problems are. Show your application to that in the interview.

Question 7: How does the current economy affect the jobs? What are the pros and cons of a startup vs a government job
Bill: I don't think it is hard to find money if you have a good idea right now.
Yi: (Analogy about sinking boat) A company is a small boat where everyone is bailing, the government is a big boat that takes a long time to sink but no one helps bail.

Airport Scanners

One session at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine conference was on the new scanner technology being used in airports. The session had a few speakers, each with their own expertise, covering both backscatter x-ray technology and millimeter wave technology. The focus was on the science, regulation, and policy - not privacy or security efficacy. I'm very glad I went. Here is a summary:

Packing for Vancouver: My first bio-med-phys conference.

I'm attending the annual American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Conference next week in Vancouver. Yeah, it is joint with the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicsts. My poster is (basically) ready, though not printed. I think I have plane tickets, a hotel room reserved, and a conference registration. So is the hard part done yet?

I haven't started looking at the conference schedule to figure out what I am going to attend. I don't even know if I need to do so. At the APS (March or April meeting) conferences there are so many parallel sessions that it is impossible to just wander and hope you see the right talks. APS even has a helpful schedule planner on the website. It is much easier to do planning ahead for APS meetings rather than trying to use the booklet to plan once you get there.

I haven't started collecting a list of other events I want to go to. I know there is a Geant4 meeting/get together the first evening, which I will attend. There is a Stanford get together the same night, so I don't know if I will be going to that. I don't know if there are other things I would want to go to. Again, at APS there were often breakfasts and evening meetings for students or specific interests. Some of the breakfasts required advanced registration.

I haven't looked at the poster authors and speakers to see if there are people I know who will be there. I don't know that many people who are going from Stanford, so it would be great if my social circle at this meeting had more than 3 people. Otherwise, I will take a lot of books. Which means I need to go stock up at borders...

I haven't started packing. This is my first time going to Vancouver, so I don't know what type of weather to expect. Worse, I don't know what the indoor climate will be like. My assumptions about Anaheim were pretty spot on - it was usually freezing in the convention center. It is hard to pack minimally when the error bars are 10 degrees. I also don't know the level of dress that I will feel most comfortable in. At American physics conferences (opposed to European ones) talks are regularly given by people (students, usually) in jeans and tennis shoes. The audience looks similar. An e-mail reminder about the AAPM conference stated that the dress code in business casual, which I expected. The medical physics crowd is used to clinic dress code, which - here at Stanford - is conservative business casual. I'm not entirely sure I could put together an outfit that satisfies the clinic dress code here, but I hope to never need to... Also, I might want to pack enough so that if the US economy collapses I can just stay in Canada (-: